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He doesn’t speak any English but with another guys translation help I’m pretty sure we’re going to the right place. He unfolds an umbrella for himself and we’re off. The guy looks terribly old and I probably could have walked faster, but it’s a slow but awesome journey through the pouring rain and the unfamiliar streets of Phitsanulok.

There were two options to stay at, a dorm-style accommodation way outside the city, or a “hotel” right in the middle of the action. The dorm was a lot cheaper and I might have met some other travellers there, but to be perfectly honest in two days I haven’t seen any other westerners so I don’t think this is a very popular town!

This is good though – I really need to get myself a pair of shoes, another t-shirt, replace my shorts, and get some new sunglasses. The perfect, cheap, non-tourist town to do this. Or so I think….

I start by heading off to the mall. If there is one place you could find all those things together, it’s the mall right? The town is built along side a river. To be honest, not the best looking river in the world:

I pass a few shoe stores along the way but don’t even bother looking because the mall has it all right? When I get there, there’s no carpark – there’s a motorbike park!! How awesome is that!

The prices at this place are insane! A pair of shoes is B2000. T-shirts are B700. This is genuine clothing – I want my cheap knock-offs! I check out all the floors, can’t even find a replacement battery for my phone. What kind of crazy Asian city doesn’t have knock-off clothes and knock-off batteries??

Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find something, maybe at the night markets. Definitely at the night markets. I go for a wander 2km down the road to the bus station. Stop off halfway along the way for lunch at a roadside place. I’ve learnt the Thai name for chicken fried rice, I’m so proud. Khao Pad Gai, too easy. I get my fried rice and a 600ml Coke for 30 baht. Man this place is great!

At the bus station I get helpfully informed that my previous info from the tourist office by the river was wrong – there are no buses to Aranyaprathet, or anywhere along the way – I have to go to Bangkok.

Damn.

I really didn’t want to go back to Bangkok.

Ah well, c’est la vie. Take a motorbike back to the train station. Tickets are between 170 and 800 depending on class. I grab the timetable and walk back to my room, plenty of time to study that later. It’s about 6pm so I decide to go check out the night markets and find me a new t-shirt!

The markets are in full swing when I get there, so many stalls, anything you could imagine. I go for a wander looking for some sunglasses. I wander the whole length. No sunglasses. Ok, but there will definitely be shoes right? Sure thing, but only real-name brands for B500 and up. I have seen cheap knock-off Chucks for B250 in Khao San Rd, why didn’t I buy them then?? Fine! T-shirts, however, will not be a problem. Except the prices are around B190 and the quality is terrible! Those horrible iron-on full screen prints, and the fabric is the normal heavy cotton that will kill me in this climate. The shirt I’m wearing was B150 from right in the middle of Khao San and it’s awesome! Light cotton, and great print. Bangkok’s not looking so bad after all….

Don’t get money out of this ATM…

So my trip through Phitsanulok has turned out to be a total bust, about the only thing I can say is that I got some cheap eats.

Also learnt how to order fried chicken and cashews – Gai Pad Med Mamuang. Ordered that for dinner, 30 baht. Got takeaway, went back to my room, watched Men In Black 3.

Traveler extreme.    m/     m/

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My entirely pleasant journey in the back of a songthaew with Samantha (Argentina) is interrupted as we stop to pick up the remaining members of our trekking party – five teenage girls from Ireland. I had heard that the awesomeness of your trek depends entirely on the awesomeness of your group… This is not going to be good. They have about a dozen plastic bags filled with every kind of junk food you can buy at a 7-11, apparently not wanting to risk eating what the natives are eating. I look across at Samantha; she mimes putting a gun to her head. My thoughts exactly.

By the time the 40 minute drive to base camp is over, we have all introduced ourselves and are chatting happily. They turn out to be really fun (and have awesome accents), and despite what I assumed when I first saw them, they aren’t little rich girls travelling with their parents. They are all friends who decided to go on a trip through Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. They’d only just started, so this was the fourth day of their holiday. I’m impressed, it’s a pretty cool thing to be doing so young and on their own. You go you crazy red-haired Irish girls!

We start off with a small 4 hour hike to the elephant camp up in the hills. And it is pretty much up-hill the whole way. I’ve got to be honest here, jandals was not the best option for a trek like that. But my shoes were lost/stolen at some point along the way to Chiang Mai so there wasn’t much I could do. I looked for some shoes to buy, but getting my size in Thailand is proving quite hard. But I really probably should get some at some point….

The hike was beautiful, but again, to be perfectly honest it just looked like I was hiking around New Zealand. Except for the bamboo and bugs. At one point the adventurous ones of us swung across a river on vines which was pretty sweet.

We got to camp and dinner was laid out for us. Not bad – a huge pot of curry, and some eggplant and chicken thing. After dinner they built up this huge bamboo bonfire and we all sat around chatting. Someone had some cards so I taught everyone how to play Scum, which then went on the whole rest of the night. I’m sure it’s not an NZ only game, but it’s surprising how few people know it around the world. Everyone I’ve ever taught it to has thought it’s one of the coolest card games they’ve ever played. Definitely my favourite.

The next day we went for a small hike to a waterfall which was pretty awesome and went for a swim. It felt so good after hiking so long. I’d started feeling pretty seedy that morning and it only got worse with all the walking. When we got to the white water rafting part I decided I was probably going to sit it out. I spent the whole safety briefing and everything lying down wanting to die, but then when they started loading the rafts into the water I thought I’d better not waste the money I’d already paid and give it a go. Turned out I didn’t feel too bad on the raft, and it was an awesome trip!! Huge rapids, the water was running pretty well, some of the other rafts got stuck in hilarious ways, and it was a damn good time. About halfway through the trip we pulled up alongside what I thought was bamboo docks. We all jumped off the rafts and onto the “docks” which turned out to be bamboo rafts. Awesome! They punted them offshore and down the river we went some more, native style.

After the river our driver took us past some “traditional” village things just trying to get us to buy trinkets etc, and by this time I am feeling really really bad. I’ve gone to every toilet we’ve stopped by but none of them have toilet paper and I didn’t bring any and I’m feeling this could be quite dangerously explosive. Finally we get on the road back to Chiang Mai, and I’ve now got a serious chill going on. I’m wrapping my arms around my thin t-shirt which is the best I can do and trying not to throw up. We eventually get back to my hostel after about an hour, and I run straight to the bathroom. Not a moment too soon…..

Luckily I booked the 6-room dorm, and no one else is in here!  I have a whole room to myself and my own bathroom. That worked out pretty well.

Today has been kind of a waste as I’m just lying in bed feeling sorry for myself. I have that travel med kit from the Travel Doctors and it’s got a bunch of stuff specifically for this situation so I’ve been taking that and feeling pretty alright. Hopefully get back onto some solid foods soon – I’m kinda hungry now.

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I rode out to Pai with Dave, Yuichi, Mark (Xiao), Andy, and Sophie. The road from Chaing Mai is 134 kilometres long and has 762 curves in it. I rented an awesome 200cc Honda Phantom instead of the scooters that everyone else got. It was perfect, definitely didn’t need to go up to 400cc. Riding that bike was ultimately awesome, I pulled up at the hostel in the morning and felt like the MAN. Everyone came out to look. All the guys who got scooters wished that they’d got my bike. None of them could ride so obviously they wouldn’t but still, who wouldn’t want that bike!

Andy, Yuichi, Dave, me, Sophie, Mark

We stopped off at this geyser on the way to have a look. It cost B200 to get in so we were a bit put off, but decided to go in in the end. Turned out that it was a whole hot spring complex and restaurant and guesthouse. We jumped in the hot pools and chilled out. It felt so great on my back after riding for so long. The road out to Pai is supposed to be about 4 hours long. At scooter speed we took a bit longer. On the way back it only took about 3 hours.

Mark, probably using his translation app

Next day drove back from Pai. Now that was an awesome ride. No scooters, just me riding my own speed. Made it all the way through the Pai canyon bits and it was only when we joined back up with highway 107 that the rain came out and thundered down. We just decided screw it, we’ll get soaked, and we kept going until we got to the hostel. The sun came out at the end and we dried out (mostly).

Got dinner and now here I am. Going out to get a proper back massage.

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In the last blog I was planning my day for Lopburi. In the morning still in Ayutthaya I got up early to pack my bag and dropped it off at the train station. I went with Raphael to Wat Yai Chaimongkhon and had a look around there. It was pretty huge compare to the ruins that I’d been looking at previously.

After a pretty decent lunch and an amazing fruit shake, I jumped on a tuktuk back to the train station just in time for the train to Lopburi. It was just an hour north on the slow train, nothing much happening. I met two Belgian tourists and got the guy’s details. If I go through Belgium, I’m totally hitting him up for a beer.

At Lopburi I was feeling pretty sunburned and wasn’t really sure if I could be bothered braving the sun to the famed monkey temple, but glad I did – got this awesome photo of me and my monkey buddies!

There were monkeys all over the streets surrounding the area of the Phra Prang Sam Yot temple.

Only for about a one block radius and then they petered out pretty quick. But inside the temple itself there were a lot of them!

Phra Prang Sam Yot

After the temple, I just sat in an internet cafe for an hour, enjoying the air-con on my sunburn. I got some dinner, and then spent the next 6 hours reading at the train station, waiting for my night train to arrive. The Belgian tourists had their train delayed by 5 hours, so when mine was only delayed 40 minutes I felt pretty lucky.

School kids waiting for an extra 4 hours…

The book that I got at the hostel in Bangkok (Human Traces) has turned to be really good so I am stoked! It’s one of the most engaging books I’ve read in a while, and I’m a bit sad that I’ve got through so much of it already. Half the pages at the beginning were falling out so I’m trying to read while also trying to stop the pages from flying off in the wind created by all the fans!

As I’m sitting there reading, huge bugs of various sorts keep falling off the ceiling and jumping off the walls onto me. I wish I took a photo of it, but I saw something that was part enormous cricket, part demon bug, all evil, and I probably would have shat my pants had it landed on me. This little guy landed on me though :3

After a sufficient delay the train comes and I jump on and fall asleep. In the morning when I wake up we still have an hour and a half to go and the scenery is amazing.

I make the mistake of opening a page of my book again and I am hooked. Sorry scenery, I’ll see you some other time!

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Here’s a quote about Lopburi, from my little guidebook:

“Situated in the very heart of monkey territory, […] Visitors to the wat are issued a monkey-hitting stick for the duration of their visit.”
Sounds like a hell of a time!!! I don’t know if this is good or bad but I’m finding out tomorrow. Do aggressive monkeys scare me? Yes. So am I doing it? HELL YES.

Now, better actually write something about today! Kind of tired, might just write a summary……

Rented a bicycle:

This is at the Ayutthaya Historical Center

Saw some elephants:

Saw some headless buddhas:

And saw some cool wats:

Wat Phraram

Detail of Wat Phraram

Great day, beautiful city, a lot of history, very nice to be out of Bangkok and with B25 meals again.

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I haven’t seen any of the city yet, but it used to be the capital before it got sacked by the Burmese. So now it’s a little town surrounding a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I’m going to hire a bicycle tomorrow and go for a little explore.

Swapped my Shantaram for Sebastian Faulks – Human Traces at the hostel this morning. It’s much smaller which is so much better to carry around!

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I loved the station at Hua Hin and all the little ones along the way. They were full of interesting locals doing their thing.

I wasn’t sure about the non-airconditioned slow train, but it had windows that opened the entire way up and down so it was plenty breezy and had an awesome view of the countryside.

It took about 5 hours to get up to Bangkok going past all these gorgeous small town stations on the way. Bangkok train station was pretty sweet and I took this amazing photo:

Bangkok Train Station

I am super proud of that one!!

Evas told me that when I got to Khao San Rd I had to go and talk to Sophie. She turned out to be an Australian working at a place called Adventure Bugs Travel. She and her co-worker Reece are TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!! I went out on the town with them the first night and their whole group is fantastic.

It’s nice meeting new people here but gotta move on soon, way too expensive and the big city vibe gets old pretty fast.

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Two nights ago I met the lovely Jill who challenged me to hitchhike the next part of my journey. Nothing like a good challenge so down to the 7/11 to buy myself a marker pen, and 10 minutes later I have this. MapsWithMe has all the place names in Thai as well as English, so I just opened that up and copied out the Thai name for Hua Hin.

I pack my bags and leave the very nice Maggie’s Guesthouse, and wander down the road. Soon enough there are guys pulling up on bikes offering me a ride, so I negotiate 40 baht to the highway. It’s actually quite a distance so I’m glad I didn’t walk it, the sun is burning me up as it is. I thought that leaving NZ I’d be getting out of the worst sun in the world, but this is still pretty bad. I think I got burnt the first day I got here and that’s sort of been par for every day since.

The highway is busy and I’m thinking this is going to be pretty easy. I take off my shades, smile a lot, and start eye-balling drivers. No dice. I hear someone call from behind me and look around and there’s a lady at a minibus agency. Her name is Rose, and she asks me if I’m crazy – she can get me a ride to Hua Hin for only 180. Well sure, if price was the point here! I sit down with her for a chat and it turns out she was a big hitchhiker in her youth, going all over Thailand and China. Badass, old Thai lady!!

I go back to the highway and it’s baking hot. My sign is not working. Trucks, vans, and cars are all flying past me with not a backwards glance, something needs to change… I go back to Rose and ask her to show me the Thai word for “North”. I put that on the other side of my sign and head back to the highway.

Five minutes later I’m in a van full of locals and we’re speeding north. Mission accomplished! They speak no English, and I speak very bad Thai but I thank them and we laugh about my sign. Apparently my Thai writing is pretty good! Dee mak!

After another vehicle change I arrive in Pran Buri, where the main highway splits north and away from the beach, and then east to the beach and Hua Hin. I’m about to hitch again when this girl calls from behind me and indicates this little old bus just down the road. She says “Hua Hin, catch bus!” and tells me it’s only 20 baht. That’s 80 cents for a bus trip that’s over 20km. This bus looks old and awesome so why not!

This toy bus took me to Hua Hin

When I get to Hua Hin I strap on my backpack and wander the city looking for a good deal. I find some rooms at 100 baht that look like you’ll get stabbed, robbed, and then stabbed again. Everything else seems to be about 400 baht up. Finally I find this really nice place called Kingshome run by John, a very interesting Dutch guy, who has travelled all over the world and finally settled down at 68 in Thailand. It’s right by the beach and the main part of town, and just has a good vibe to it. He shows me the rooms, starting with the best 1500 baht, and finally ending with this room under the front verandah that you have to access by climbing a ladder. It is awesome. We work the price down to 200 baht if I stay two days. He tells me that’s the cheapest he’s ever rented it, no idea if that’s true.

After I get my gear stowed and had a bit of a tour of the city, I’m chatting with him in the foyer and we get to talking about what I did for a living. When he finds out I was in IT he says he might have some work for me. He wants to take his spreadsheets of data collected over the last 10 years and turn them into some nice graphs. Hello pivot tables!! I tell him sure, if there’s a room upgrade involved. He agrees and I move my stuff into a huge air-conditioned king bedroom with crazy decor, private ensuite, full breakfast service, free this, free that, the works. This is awesome!!! When his daughter gets home this afternoon I’m going to work with her on getting the graphs set up and teach her how to do it. I can’t see it taking more than an hour, it’s pretty straightforward.

So around 9pm I wander out to the town to find a drink and just as I’m walking out the end of the street I hear “Hey mate!”. I turn around and sitting on the coolest motorbike ever to ride all the way through India, Vietnam, and Cambodia is Evas. He asks me where there’s a place to stay and I tell him my old room is free. He has a look, loves it, stows his gear, and we go out for a beer. He spends the next hour telling me his stories of riding through Asia. Soooo coool!!!!! There is no question now, I’m picking up a bike as soon as I find one. Prices in Thailand are actually really good, I’ll have a look when I’m in Bangkok.

Met up with a swiss girl called Irene, potentially be travelling up to BKK together tomorrow. Evas is off south, down through Malaysia, then he’s selling his bike and going home. On the road for 9 months!

The town is beautiful.

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Had drinks last night with an awesome bunch of people. Rod is a Kiwi who has travelled most of the world. Patrick, an Australian with a ridiculous tan. Jill, from England who decided it would be a great idea to buy a bike and cycle round the world. She’s already come 17,000km by the time I met her. And Will from China who is also doing the solo travel thing, just like the rest of us. It took us all by surprise as I guess I’d been thinking of backpacking as a purely western pursuit. He’s doing the exact same thing we’re all doing – quit his job and sold everything to travel the world, with no plans and just the clothes on his back. Just like a page out of Shantaram we all sat outside and debated religion and politics under the drifting stars. We drank Sang Som and Archa beer, and toasted my birthday and the mysterious call of the road.

Patrick told me about a temple he’d been to earlier that day, just down past the town, and at the top of this hill by the beach. He said there were stairs for the first part, and after that just ropes attached to steel poles in the rock. More than a little drunk I thought this sounded like a fantastic adventure, so I set out today to do it.

This is the climb:

I rented a motorbike from the place I’m staying at and set off for the south of town. Hooooly shit, I forgot how awesome it is to ride!!! I was thinking after last night that the whole bicycling thing sounded pretty intriguing. You have everything you need with you, your accommodation and food, and you don’t have a big pack on your back. No way. Nothing beats the feeling of hauling into a corner with 500cc of power screaming beneath you. I have got to buy a bike.

Poor saps and their scooters

I get to the base of this mountain and find the bottom of the path he was talking about. All along the bottom are these gorgeous monkeys with huge eyes. They’re not the kind that harass you and steal all your stuff, they’re more the sit-around-and-look-cute type, which was nice.

Dusky leaf monkey

It wasn’t until after I’d got back that I had a good look at the actual size of the mountain. At this point I’m thinking it’s probably just a few staircases and a bit of rope. Not even. This is the first thing I’m greeted with: (enhanced for ominous effect)

Then this:

And it just keeps going like that! I don’t even know how many stairs I climbed. At some point they just give up all together and the path switches to this ridiculously sharp rock and just a rope to haul yourself up. And I really do mean haul yourself up:

It could be worse though right? I mean the rope could be covered with huge angry red ants… oh wait:

This goes on for I don’t even know how long. It’s hot enough in Thailand already without doing this kind of crazy exertion so I am pouring sweat at this point. Luckily I brought some water with me! Probably should have eaten more by this point than the three small bananas I had for breakfast. I meant to get something on the way, but once I jumped on that bike I wasn’t stopping.

After what seems like a couple of hours, but was probably only 1 hour 45, I make it to the top. It is totally worth it. For one, I didn’t plunge to my death which is a total bonus, and two, I climbed this massive intimidating mountain! I am the king of the world!!

And this is the view:

The climb down was actually a lot more difficult until I got to the steps. I feel like I have done some good solid cardio for today though! Things I have learnt from this experience: a) Breakfast is important. b) Chucks are not the best shoes for climbing razor sharp mountains.

When I got back to town I ordered two lunches. I’ve noticed that they don’t do many veggies in this country. I have to find the word for ordering more vegetables. Oh and since it’s my birthday and all, this too

This was AMAZING

View from lunch

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